Hitherto, for a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material, a wet development has been applied using a developing solution after photographing. However, the method has the following inconveniences, and improvement has been desired.
[1] Because development, bleaching, fixing, and drying are carried out, a long time is required for the development processing.
[2] Because plural tanks containing a developing solution are required, a processor cannot be made small in size and light in weight.
[3] Inconveniences, such as the replenishment of a developing solution, the disposal of processing liquids, washing of developing tanks, etc., are required.
As described in the above, since a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material has been subjected to a complicated processing, some users have not been able to use it.
In order to improve that, photographic light-sensitive materials that are processed using a development method by heating (hereinafter, referred to as "heat development") to a temperature of from 80 to 150.degree. C. are proposed, as described in, for example, the specification of U.S. Pat. No. 3,152,904, the specification of U.S. Pat. No. 3,457,075, JP-B-43-4921 ("JP-B" means an examined Japanese patent publication), and JP-B-43-4924. One example is a method of previously incorporating a precursor for a developing agent in a light-sensitive layer, decomposing the precursor by heating, to form a developing agent, and subjecting to development. In such a heat-development system, the development processing may be carried out by only applying heat, whereby the processing can be carried out in a short time and a processor can be small in size. Furthermore, the system has such characteristics that there are no inconveniences with the replenishment and the disposal of a developing solution.
However, when the light-sensitive material of this system was applied to a printing light-sensitive material, when 4 plates (blue, green, red, and black plates) were piled up, there was a problem that color discrepancy and distortion of an image were caused by the dimensional change that occurred during heat development. To solve the problem, a method of heat treating under a low tension is disclosed in JP-A-8-211547 ("JP-A" means unexamined published Japanese patent application). However, this method did not cause any problem of dimensional distortion when applied to a small-size plate of 45 cm or less, but a dimensional distortion occurred when it was applied to a larger-size plate exceeding the above size. Further, when the light-sensitive material according to the method was stored after heat development, with the lapse of time color discrepancy occurred as a result of the dimensional distortion. Therefore, this method also has a disadvantage in dimensional stability during storage, and there has been a need to solve the problem.
Further, in the above conventional methods, there is a problem that color discrepancy occurs as a result of dimensional change occurring immediately after a heat development, i.e., within three (3) hours after the heat development. This problem is especially serious in the production of a newspaper, in which exposure, development, and printing are conducted in a short time, and solution of the problem has been demanded.